Fr. Neuhaus on Life

I came across this speech by the late Father Richard John Neuhaus while browsing the online forum at the American Lutheran Publishing Board.  I won't go into the full details here, but before I get to the 'life article', let me say that Father Neuhaus is possibly THE reason I am Catholic today.  I happened to hear an short interview with him on C-SPAN in 2005 at a very critical time in my faith life life as a Lutheran.  In the course of that interview I was overwhelmingly convicted that I must look into the Catholic Church.  To make a long story short, I did, and my family and I went through RCIA, and entered into full communion at the Easter Vigil in 2007.  I thank God daily for leading me to what Fr. Neuhaus described as, and I truly believe to be, "the Church of Jesus Christ most fully and rightly ordered through time".  Like Fr. Neuhaus, I remain thankful for my upbringing in the Lutheran Church, where I was taught the Creeds and the faith and received grace. Fr. Neuhaus did not know me, but he changed my life.  I finished reading his wonderful book 'Catholic Matters' just days before his passing in Jan 2009.

Father Neuhaus was raised Lutheran and became a leading Lutheran Theologian.  He marched with Dr. King and fought for justice and truth tirelessly his entire life.  Later in life, this included justice for and the protection of the most vulnerable among us, the unborn.  You can read about the role of abortion in his transformation here.

First Things is reprinting the following speech from Fr. Neuhaus on each anniversary of Roe-vs-Wade.  In this 2008 speech, Father Neuhaus said the following:

"The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. I expect many of us here, perhaps most of us here, can remember when we were first encountered by the idea. For me, it was in the 1960s when I was pastor of a very poor, very black, inner city parish in Brooklyn, New York. I had read that week an article by Ashley Montagu of Princeton University on what he called "A Life Worth Living." He listed the qualifications for a life worth living: good health, a stable family, economic security, educational opportunity, the prospect of a satisfying career to realize the fullness of one’s potential. These were among the measures of what was called "a life worth living."


And I remember vividly, as though it were yesterday, looking out the next Sunday morning at the congregation of St. John the Evangelist and seeing all those older faces creased by hardship endured and injustice afflicted, and yet radiating hope undimmed and love unconquered. And I saw that day the younger faces of children deprived of most, if not all, of those qualifications on Prof. Montagu’s list. And it struck me then, like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning that illuminated our moral and cultural moment, that Prof. Montagu and those of like mind believed that the people of St. John the Evangelist - people whom I knew and had come to love as people of faith and kindness and endurance and, by the grace of God, hope unvanquished - it struck me then that, by the criteria of the privileged and enlightened, none of these my people had a life worth living. In that moment, I knew that a great evil was afoot. The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed."

Sadly, I have heard this 'subtle eugenics' argument often, including from my brother and sister Catholics. The argument is that many 'unwanted' children are brought into this world, and that abortion is somehow a solution to pregnancies that would bring a child into 'unfavorable situations'.  The argument is that their lives 'may not be worth living'.  Then I ponder the setting and family into which our current President was born in Hawaii in 1961 (before Planned Parenthood existed on the campus of the University of Hawaii which came to Hawaii in 1966). One has to wonder if the Mother of our current President would have made the same 'choice' that she did in 1961 today.  After all, his Father and Mother had just met at the University of Hawaii, his Mother, Ann Dunham, was barely 18 when she became pregnant, his Father had another pregnant wife and children back at home, and they were three months pregnant with our 44th President when they got married in 1961.  It would be very difficult to convince me that this was pregnancy was "planned parenthood" on their part.  According to the wiki source, Ann was a single mother by January 1962 when Barack was just 4 months old.  She enrolled at the University of Washington and her parents helped raise Barack as she pursued her studies and career.  Now under the circumstances, how many freshman 18 year old college students today, finding themselves in an unplanned pregnancy, would be persuaded to simply 'plan parenthood', and make a 'choice' to have the 'problem' go away?  How many lives of important historical figures have been shaped under difficult and uncertain circumstances similar to the early life of our President?  How much did the parents and other responsible adults charged with the care of these children grow in virtue as they 'did their best' to give birth and raise them?  How truly sad it is that we have become a country that has so little hope and faith that we feel the choice of death is favorable to life.  Lord, have mercy on us, and awaken in us a zeal for life.  Grant us the gifts of hope and faith which we so desperately need to embrace life and support all Mother's who are tempted, mislead, or coerced to believe that their only 'choice' is abortion.